Authors: Ann Charney
I noticed that when these stories were told, certain people did not hesitate to express satisfaction that the war had reduced everyone to the same level. I began to feel very uncomfortable in the camp. I longed for us to leave, to be on our own. My mother agreed. Yuri promised to help us.
During the short time in the camp I had lost some of my confidence in the new world of freedom. People were neither happy nor good to each other as Yuri had promised. Would they ever be?
PART TWO
I
I was glad to leave the army camp. Yet the move back to Dobryd filled me with uneasiness. My first impressions of our entry into the town were still vivid: the death-like stillness, the ruins, the absence of other people. I had never seen anything so desolate. How would we survive in a place where all human activity seemed unimaginable?
I said nothing of this to my mother or my aunt. I sensed that I must not add to their feelings of hopelessness.
My fears disappeared as soon as we returned to the town. In our absence, Dobryd had been transformed into a city for the living. Bombed-out buildings, piles of rubble, caverns gouged out by handsâall had become shelters. Everywhere we went, people swarmed over the ruins, determined to survive.
They began to arrive almost as soon as the Germans had retreated. At first singly, furtively, then
en masse
, as if a common signal of confidence had spread amongst them. Ragged, emaciated, with small precious bundles of unlikely objects, they came into the town in steady streams of life that defied the ruins. Every corner of the town pulsed with activity. A new community was created. Even those who remembered the elaborate pre-war civilization that had flourished here seemed too preoccupied with reconstruction to mourn it. In this new Dobryd, my optimism about the future returned once again.
At last we had a home of our own. In the midst of a street of ruins Yuri had discovered an intact wing of an apartment house. People were already living there when we arrived, but we managed to find a space that would be ours alone.
The rooms we claimed were filled with rubble, and it took us several days to clean them out. I loved the work, sifting the dirt, filling up buckets of it, and carrying it outside. When we were finished I was very proud of our effort. It seemed to me that we had made a splendid home for ourselves. There was no glass in the windows, nor did we have water or electricity, but the rooms were large and comfortable. I was particularly excited by some of the objects we had discovered hidden in the rubble. To me these simple artifacts of domestic life seemed like treasures.
The find most prized by everyone was a wood stove. On the rare occasions when there was firewood to burn we would gather near it with our neighbours and Yuri's friends. We sat closely around it, and as the stove heated up it became very warm in the room. Faces grew flushed and perspiration dotted foreheads, yet no one moved away. The heat could not be too intense. Everyone in the room believed in its curative powers. Our guests seemed to become more expansive with the rising temperature, responding to it as if it were a stimulant. Occasionally someone would bring a few sugar cubes and then the evening became a true party.
I was still the only child amongst adults. Extra pieces of sugar were saved for me, but otherwise I was ignored. This meant I could stay and listen to the grown-ups as long as I wished, until I fell asleep in their midst. If anyone tried to move me from the floor onto the straw mattress where I slept, I always protested. I wanted to remain as long as I could within the circle of warmth, lulled by the conversation of the adults around me.
These evenings, however, did not occur very often. Our family and everyone we knew devoted all energy to the hunt for food. The city itself had been sucked dry of its resources. The Red Army distributed rations to keep the population from starving. These were so inadequate that hunger remained a constant complaint. The army itself was no better off than the civilians it fed; there simply was not enough to go around. What complicated matters even more was the way in which the army distributed its rations. Somehow this process occurred in a senseless and confusing fashion, so that, for example, while some people received only flour, others would receive nothing but packages of yeast. As a result, everyone was forced to spend most of their time in long and tedious sessions of barter and exchange.
Hunger was frequently accompanied by the prevailing disease of the time: dysentery. We all endured it with resignation. It was as much a part of the climate of our lives as the war-blemished landscape in which we lived.
This common affliction created a new pastime. People perfected their own private remedies and discussed them endlessly with their neighbours. There was no proper medication, and people turned to home remedies, peasant cures and the inventions of their imagination.
In our house the favourite treatment consisted of charcoal. Twice a week, my mother would carefully heat some precious pieces of wood. When these were partly burned and charred, she ground them into a black bitter powder. I can still recall its taste, harsh, lingering, unlike anything else. I also remember with what violence I resisted the mandatory daily dose. Everything about it revolted me, but there was no escaping it. Tears, screams, gagging brought no reprieve. My protests were ignored. Both my mother and my aunt, normally so indulgent with me, were not to be moved in this instance. Sooner or later they would have their way and I would be forced to swallow that dreadful substance. The nauseous after-taste remained for hours, to remind me that the ordeal would have to be repeated the following day.
I think that I was as hurt by my aunt's and my mother's severity as I was revolted by the horrid taste of black powder on my tongue. I could not understand why they were not moved by my pleas. Years later I realized that their unyielding insistence on this particular ritual was for them a desperate act of self-assurance. Since they had nothing else to give me, it was important for them to believe it worked.
Sometimes, strange, out-of-place events occurred, or so they seemed to me at the time. Echoes of an unknown world which excited my imagination. Once, in the course of an ordinary day, word spread through our building that ice-cream was being sold. Soon hordes of children came rushing past our window shouting with excitement. Immediately, I wanted to join them, without really understanding what the excitement was all about.
“Wait.” My mother grabbed at me. “There's no use going unless you have something to exchange.” I waited impatiently as she searched through our few belongings.
Just then Yuri walked in. He had brought us a precious tin of meat as a gift. After a brief conversation, the adults agreed to sacrifice this gift for my first taste of ice-cream. I knew enough about our life to realize that such an exchange was not made lightly. Without explanation I understood the importance of this event and I was deeply impressed.
It was not safe for me to walk through the town alone with my prize and so Yuri decided to go with me. He held my hand as we followed the noise of the children who were somewhere ahead of us, out of sight. I scarcely noticed the landscape of ruins we passed. It was simply the place where I lived, to be taken for granted.
We were approaching the centre of the noise. We pushed our way through the crowd to a doorway. Just inside it an old man and a young woman sat beside a wooden barrel wrapped in rags and paper. Yuri handed over our tin of meat while I held out the saucepan I had taken from home. The woman took it from me, bent over the barrel, and filled my pan with a creamy white substance.
Yuri led me away from the crowd and into a deserted doorway. We sat down inside it. I tasted my precious purchase and I was not disappointed. It lived up to my expectations. Yuri urged me to eat it faster, before it all melted, but nothing on earth would have induced me to rush through this experience. I lingered over each mouthful, rested between them, and Yuri, resigned, leaned back and watched me. Every time I looked up he smiled back at me. “Don't worry,” he said, “soon there will be ice-cream every day for all children.” I had utter faith in Yuri, but just this once I doubted him. I could not believe that what I was experiencing at the moment could become part of the everyday world as I knew it.
In the evening, Yuri described our adventure to my mother. When he came to the part where I first tasted the ice-cream, I laughed with them as Yuri's face mimicked my own. But my interest shifted quickly from his expression to my mother's. My mother was laughing and I suddenly realized that I had never heard her laugh this way before. She looked different. Younger, prettier. I would have done anything to keep her as she was at that moment. I tried to clown, exaggerating Yuri's mimicry, turning to any comic gesture that I could invent, but already her face had changed into the familiar set expression that I saw every day. The moment had passed.
Yuri and my mother were talking of something else, and no one paid any further attention to me for the rest of the evening. But I was not discouraged. The taste of ice-cream and the brief glimpse of my mother behind her mask of worry and grief were such important events to me that I felt myself protected by them from our desperate day-to-day reality.
Another event, equally strange and wonderful.
My mother, my aunt, Yuri and I are inside a large tent, filled with people. We are surrounded by soldiers but there are a few women as well in civilian dress. They seem to be particularly shabby in the midst of the crispness and shine of the army uniforms. At first I don't see any children, but then Yuri lifts me onto his knees and I notice a few.
I don't know what to expect but I feel very excited. It seems to me that everyone around me shares my mood. The lights dim, we are sitting in darkness, but below us the wooden platform is strongly illuminated. Something is going to happen there, I realize, and I keep my eyes fixed on the spot of light so as not to miss anything.
At last a man appears in the light. He welcomes us to the army show and tells of the marvellous entertainment that will follow. I become so excited that I can hardly sit still. There will be singers and dancers, he tells us, who have come all the way from Moscow just to entertain us. Some soldiers from the camp will also perform a special act created for this evening. The clapping and cheering become very loud. Then at a sign from the man, everyone becomes silent. The show begins.
There are no sets, no props, no costumes. The performers, like most of the audience, are dressed in uniforms. Yet I know immediately that what is happening on the platform has no relation to anything I have ever seen. Such is the power of the mood created by the performers that I feel myself carried away from my everyday self. I forget that it ever existed. I'm part of the beauty and magic that is being created before me. It seems to me that the people who are on the stage making this happen must be the happiest people in the world.
Suddenly I realize that everyone around me is laughing. The singers and dancers have left the stage. In their place there is a man dressed in a suit much too large for him. His shoes are so long he keeps tripping over them. His clothes seem borrowed from a fat giant. He is joined by two women wearing dresses that touch the floor, so long that their feet become entangled in the folds. The three of them seem to be imitating the dancers who preceded them, but they only succeed in tripping each other and stumbling into each other's arms.
I ask my mother why everyone is laughing. “It is because of the clothes,” my mother answers. I have never seen such clothes. “They came from America,” my mother tells me, “in
CARE
packages.” But they are either so inappropriate or so outsized that they have become a popular symbol of post-war humour.
I still don't understand what is causing the laughter I hear, but everyone around me recognizes the skit. It seems to me that the audience is laughing at the actors and I find this laughter cruel. The people in the circle of light are part of the evening's magicâsacred creatures to be revered and not laughed at.
It soon becomes obvious to me that the actors themselves are contributing to this sacrilege. They have become awkward creatures trapped in their hazardous clothes. They stumble, trip, and fall over one another. The costumes are trampled, ripped and soon in shreds. At the end, the actors are dressed only in ludicrous rags. I feel sad. It all seems such a terrible waste. Why didn't anyone stop them, I wonder.
The show is over and I'm very sleepy. On the way home I fall asleep. But when I'm put to bed I wake up again. I remember what troubled me. I cannot let my mother leave the room unless she explains it to me. Most important, I must find out if the clothes have been ruined forever.
“Silly girl.” My mother laughs. “What a thing to worry about.”
But I do. In the world of scarcity that I know, the destruction I have just witnessed seems to me tragic. Surely the actors must feel as sad as I do now. My mother laughs at my sorrow, but when she sees that I will not sleep she tries to reassure me.
“Come now, there's no need for you to be sad. They were only pretending to tear their clothes. The way you pretend in your games. The actors tear at loose seams without really harming the clothes. Now you can stop worrying and go to sleep.”
My mother leaves. I'm no longer worried but I still can't sleep. I relive the entire show in my head. Without knowing it, I'm creating a ceremony that will stay with me for many years. From that night on, as soon as I'm in bed, I call forth dancers, singers, comics, and they perform for me alone. I fall asleep at night to the sound of applause and laughter.
II
The centre of my life in Dobryd was the marketplace.
Ochorna, the village where we had lived immediately after our release, had seemed to me then enormously complex and exciting. Now I saw it as small and restricted in comparison to the experiences Dobryd offered. Within Dobryd, the marketplace superimposed itself on everything that had come before and blotted it out.